Talk:Do not go gentle into that good night/Archive 1

Interpretations
I think the interpretations on this page are lacking. There is also a deep element of regret in the poem. In each case of wise men, good men, wild men and grave men, Thomas implies that it is only in death that we realise truly our failures, no matter which course in life we take. This makes death all the more frustrating and, ironically, gives one more motivation for fighting against it - thus the crux of the poem; the central opposition, if you will. I will happily write a piece along these lines for the page if others think it would enrich the reading of it for viewers. Personally, I do think it is important. Let me know. Sean  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 159.134.150.204 (talk) 01:03, 3 November 2007 (UTC)

I most certainly support the above comment. There is no interpretation/explanation of the content or sentiment expressed in the original poem (or a link to any such resource) which makes this page a mechanical artifice. As far as the actual poem is concerned, it is trivial to discover it--far more important is its real 'meaning'. Sierra Bravo (2010)

Other Facts
I think the line quoting Rodney Dangerfield should not be in the bulk of the article. I think it should be in a section at the bottom of "other facts". Jennifer Brooks 19:53, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Surely the poem is copyrighted and shouldn't be quoted in full! It's so great, though, I hate to take it down. Who am I to be the police? --Amanda "Doo Doo Face" French 02:20, 24 April 2007 (UTC)

Why was my editing reversed? Here is the text:

The poem is structured as a villanelle, which seems to imply a light gay tone. This already alludes to a profound paradox: unavoidable death in the face of the perpetual rhythm of rebirth. The haunting refrains seal the poem between courage and frustration, strength and grieving. The different epithets "wise", "good", "wild", and "grave" allude to the attitudes of men in front of their last challenge.

By the time the poem was written, Dylan was facing non only the severance of the last solid bond in his life --the relationship with his father-- but also the imminence of his own demise. As Caitlin notes in her memoirs, a sinister foreboding accompanied Dylan since his teen age years, when, after an illness, a doctor gave him four years to live. Also D.J. (his father) used to say that his son would not have reached the age of forty. The same ominous feeling informs "Poem on his Birthday", composed shortly after "Do not go gentle into that good night".

Menahem23 —Preceding unsigned comment added by Menahem23 (talk • contribs) 04:24, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

I have just noticed that Mrathel has removed some rather interesting links showing how the poem has influenced other artists and their uses of it. Isn't that rather sad? It seems to be a subjective call to just delete without discussion. Please can it be replaced? Wiki is after all an encyclopaedia and as such, links that a reader may have been unaware of are very important and exactly what a reference book should be for. Captainclegg (talk) 15:13, 7 August 2009 (UTC)
 * There is a need for information about how a work influences literature and art as a whole, but I don't think that listing every sing time a line or title is used in another work really adds to the discussion of the subject, and the "facts" that I removed were what the style guide refers to as "Connective Trivia". The Stravinski work is necessary because it deals dirrectly with Thomas and the poem; the Dangerfield quote is not helpful to the discussion of the poem, nor are any references to each time a phrase or line in the poem appears in a song by bands who neither refer to the text or take anything from it but a small set of words. The WP article on the Bible, for instance, need not cite every time it is mentioned by a book or a rock band, and I feel that we have to make some sort of decision as to whether these pop culture facts are helping to understand how the work has influenced art or if they are simply random lists of times 4-5 words out of the poem appear in other works. Mrathel (talk) 15:34, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

You make an interesting point and as far as the NJ Crisp play That Good Night goes, I would agree. BUT, Donovan, a very respected and influential musician, released an excellent song using his original music and the entire poem on Beat Cafe, 2004. I strongly think that this info should be included. Captainclegg (talk) 18:02, 7 August 2009 (UTC)
 * And I have no problem with that being included into an "Influence on Art" section which describes different poets, artists, and other types of performers who work directly with the poem and its concepts in notable works, but having a list of works that use a phrase or part of the poem, without a description of how they show its influence on pop culutre does not meet the style guidelines. Mrathel (talk) 19:32, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

Poem is copyright
I am removing the poem. It is copyright. Flyguy649 talk contribs 07:14, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Is this poem definitely copyright? It is available online at many official places - poemhunter.com has it. I don't think it would be there if it was copyright. Sean —Preceding unsigned comment added by 159.134.150.37 (talk) 00:14, 10 November 2007 (UTC)


 * Alas, the poem is definitely under copyright. It is from The Poems of Dylan Thomas, published by New Directions. Copyright © 1952, 1953 Dylan Thomas. Copyright © 1937, 1945, 1955, 1962, 1966, 1967 the Trustees for the Copyrights of Dylan Thomas. Copyright © 1938, 1939, 1943, 1946, 1971 New Directions Publishing Corp. (Look here for confirmation.)


 * I guess it should be removed for now, but you might be able to obtain permission from the Trustees for the Copyrights of Dylan Thomas to use this poem on Wikipedia.Eebster the Great (talk) 01:53, 3 April 2008 (UTC)


 * It wouldn't only be for Wikipedia, though. They'd have to agree to release it under the GFDL. Chance of that? Somewhere between zero and zero. 86.132.137.5 (talk) 18:30, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

THe poem can not be on the page b/c there is no way they would just give away the rights to the poem for free use.Mrathel (talk) 12:13, 10 April 2009 (UTC)
 * Having just formatted it to display correctly, I must say I agree. It should be removed, unless the article is going to, say, analyze it in depth, which it doesn't. Huw Powell (talk) 01:37, 29 December 2009 (UTC)

And yet it appears in full under the entry for Villanelle —Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.20.20.129 (talk) 02:26, 23 February 2010 (UTC)

Again, should the entire text of the poem be on Wikipedia? I mean, I love the poem, and Wikipedia, but is it legally kosher? TuckerResearch (talk) 03:25, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

Look at the absence of upper case
Consider the possibility that the absence of upper case in the phrase "good night" indicates the author's lack of belief that his father's impending death is a Divine coming occurance...98.26.108.156 (talk) 01:38, 10 March 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.26.108.156 (talk) 01:36, 10 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Dylan Thomas doesn't capitalize nouns anywhere else in the poem, though, so looking at the lack of stylization might not garner much. Keep in mind, that's not a title, per se, just the first line of the poem, so capitalization shouldn't be expected.  However, I agree that the "good night" doesn't neccessarily represent a particular religious phenomenon, since it isn't written as a proper noun, but that doesn't indicate that Dylan Thomas actually had a lack of belief in religion.Eebster the Great (talk) 01:39, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Nobody, especially the estate of DT and publishers, would want to take down the text. They might want to cut the inane analysis. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.150.197.222 (talk) 20:21, 19 November 2011 (UTC)

pop article
I dont think that a poem that is as important as this one should have an In Popular Culture section longer than the article itself. I think we need to cut the pop section and expand actual criticism of this poem by literary critics. Even if it does appear on six episodes of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the article still has to be about the poemMrathel (talk) 07:17, 9 December 2008 (UTC)
 * It is time to remove the text of the pop culture section that does not belong in the article b/c it consists of Connective Trivia. I hope this doesn't step on too many toes, but the article should not focus on how many Family Guy episodes quote the poem Mrathel (talk) 20:26, 14 April 2009 (UTC)
 * I have changed the title of the pop culture section to a section on adaptations of the poem. I think that if the poem is actually put to music or displayed in large part in another format, it belongs in the article if it is notable. However, information about a single line from the poem being mentioned on a Buffy the Vampire Slayer episode is less than tivia and does not belong here. Given that the poem is quite common, this article tends to draw pop culture trivia on a regular basis. To avoid having the list grow back again, the information on the adaptations should be taken out of list format and be put into regular text. Mrathel (talk) 20:35, 14 April 2009 (UTC)
 * I have removed much of the connective trivia once again. To clarify my reason: the fact that the poem is mentioned by Rodney Dangerfield, modern bands, or is used as the title of a movie that is not about the subject at hand is not important to the Dylan Thomas poem, as clarified in the section on how to deal with trivia in the style guide. It is not necessary to list every time a phrase is used throughout the extensive web of television, film, and pop music history, and this information in now way adds to the discussion of Dylan Thomas or his poem. Mrathel (talk) 13:06, 7 August 2009 (UTC)

date inconsitency
"composed in 1952 [..] Originally published in the journal Botteghe Oscure in 1951" —Preceding unsigned comment added by 165.12.252.113 (talk) 05:20, 14 April 2009 (UTC)

Capitalization of the Article Title
I propose that this article be renamed "Do Not Go Gently into That Good Night," a title that reflects standard capitalization practices of poetry (i.e., all major word capitalized except into, which is a preposition). I realize that in this case the poem is technically untitled, and that its title is taken from its first line, but that is still a title, and should still be capitalized properly. If there are no objections, I will make the move in three days. Kyle Hardgrave (talk) 05:12, 30 December 2009 (UTC)
 * I dunno, since it's not actually a title. But anyway, if you do it, it's "gentle", not "gently".  Also not sure about capping "that". Huw Powell (talk) 23:10, 1 January 2010 (UTC)

Just as I read this wikiwedia page, I knew something was wrong. The title. The title should correspond to that used by the author in the published poems, not to some US American "standard" capitalisation practice. The title should be capitalised properly, and looking at the Collected Poems (London: Readers Union, 1954) there are two options: Do not go Gentle into that Good Night (as on the contents page) or Do not go gentle into that good night (title heading the poem on p. 116) I´ll take the first, but if anyone prefers the second I won´t revert. (Please could someone change the title of the article - I don´t know how to do that. While we are at it, the statement "The poem has no title other than its first line" doesn´t seem right either. The poem is titled in the edition of 1954. Better would be "The poem´s title is also its first line and refrain". —Preceding unsigned comment added by 77.11.92.75 (talk) 11:08, 16 October 2010 (UTC)

Written
As I recall from long long ago classes, the poem might have been writen far earlier - something like 1945, when David John Thomas was ill? Can someone help me out here? Hipocrite (talk) 21:26, 30 September 2010 (UTC)

chronology violates causation
composed in '52 and published in '51??????????????????????? hmmmm that can't be right... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.148.178.18 (talk) 03:37, 26 November 2010 (UTC)

I suppose Time Travel happened. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.56.120.13 (talk) 19:04, 6 December 2010 (UTC)

Requested move

 * The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section. 

The result of the move request was: page moved per request. - GTBacchus(talk) 08:39, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night → Do not go gentle into that good night — Someone has incorrectly used a standard capitalising for the title on this poem when in fact the poem does not have a title and it is known by its first line. It therefore should reflect the first line and 'Do' is the only capital. FruitMonkey (talk) 18:22, 19 December 2010 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Title
Another note on the title, shouldn't it be un-italicized and in quotation marks? TuckerResearch (talk) 03:23, 11 February 2012 (UTC)